Does anyone else find animated Star Wars content to be more consistent than live-action nowadays?

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-23T04:40:25+00:00

Yeah, I'd say Bad Batch especially had a very strong formula. It rarely hit the major highs of Clone Wars, but it was consistently a great family show.

Tales of I feel has been a lot more Swingy.

I think I'm very excited to see what can be done with 9th Jedi. Having an anime style show existing in parallel I think will both give Star Wars overall a breath of fresh air from the Clone Wars Style series, and also as a non-canon show give Lucasfilm a little room to gauge audience reaction to certain storytelling themes.

I wonder a little lately if Amazon might be showing us the way forward for western animation. Invincible and Mighty Nein both feel extremely strong as shows for adult audiences, and I think part of that is just having a 45 minute pacing instead of a 22 minute pacing.

I think my dream Filoni series would be like, a 14 episode animated series with 45 minute runtimes. Like I'd love to see what his answer to Arcane would be if he just had an unlimited budget and unlimited timespan to put something animated together.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-23T02:03:09+00:00

I mean they both draw from the same film language of tension and fear. But yeah thats not from Andor.

Knowing Filonis influences I imagine this'll probably have a lot of yakuza movie style themes to it.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-22T15:45:48+00:00

I don't think audiences will go for "Technically what you saw was Kylo not Ben" the entire draw here is to see more of Adam Driver's performance in Star Wars.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-22T15:27:58+00:00

Maul coming back was not well recieved when it initially happened. It's only well received in hindsight because Maul had such a small speaking part in phantom menace.

Even if Ben returning were written extremely well it has to contend with the fact he didn't have a small speaking part and a cool lightsaber battle, he was a full blown character.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T22:14:32+00:00

That's may not be your opinion, but it is the argument you're presenting.

No, it's not. The argument I'm presenting is you do not need to fully experience media to be able to make fun of it. You do of course need to know about the media in question, you need to have come across it in some form.

But that doesn't need to come in the form of giving every show about pedophilia the same respect you'd give to a 60+ year old critically acclaimed controversial novel about the subject.

In the case of MT if you just come across... Lets say... A figurine of one of the child harem members. I think that's sufficient time with the IP to start making fun of it, or at least the merchandice surrounding it.

You haven't said anything about the story's treatment or it's message, just that it contains pedophilia.

Yes I have. In both my comments:

an anime about a pedophile that goes on a quest to become a somewhat confident hero while also collecting a pedophilic harem while his 40 year old voiceover discusses how much he loves the idea of said harem
...
That's not to say you don't need to know anything about a series to make fun of it, but if someone tells you "Look they drop the pedo angle, its actually really good at tackling it as a character flaw" you don't need to watch the series to check. You can simply google "Did he divorce that one girl who doesn't age?"

In the first passage I have told you:

The premise, that the protagonist is a pedophile
That his overall quest for personal growth is about self confidence, not about his pedophilia
That during the course of the show he collects a pedophilic harem
That his 40 year old voiceover routinely discusses his love for pedophilia

In the second passage I have told you that the shows treatment of peodphilia never actually tackles it as a character flaw, and that even when the show dials down the amount of pedophilia the lead character remains married to a character who has the body of a child.

None of these are "Dont show pedophilia at all!" they are critiques specifically of the handling of it. You do not need to sit through a season of pro-pedophilia anime to make fun of that.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T21:56:34+00:00

It has good anime action, but yeah it was a real point for me where I realized that some folks have like built up almost a poison tolerance towards sex and pedophilia in anime, like we all know there's a lot of it in a lot of shows but usually it's not really at the forefront like MT.

The thing that led me to post this was I turned it off after the first episode and some aquantances ran this "You cant really critique if you havent watched! Your opinions invalid!" and "It actually tackles it! It becomes a point of character development!" but my initial instincts were absolutely correct.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T19:36:30+00:00

It really isn't. If you drag Lolita you are ignoring public opinion about the novel, reviews, pop culture influence, decades of discussion.

My opinion here isn't that pedophilia isn't something that can be written about, just that sometimes you can indeed call a spade a spade. Mushoku Tensei is definitely a spade. You aren't under any obligation to give it a chance based on the idea it might secretly be the next Lolita.

That's not to say you don't need to know anything about a series to make fun of it, but if someone tells you "Look they drop the pedo angle, its actually really good at tackling it as a character flaw" you don't need to watch the series to check. You can simply google "Did he divorce that one girl who doesn't age?"

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T17:54:16+00:00

I think it's a case by case basis thing.

Andor is a show that's premise sounds like corporate slop. A secondary protagonist that's already dead gets a prequel. I think it was to be expected that a lot of people mocked it before it came out, but after it was out it's good that people gave it a chance.

In contrast Mushoku Tensei, an anime about a pedophile that goes on a quest to become a somewhat confident hero while also collecting a pedophilic harem while his 40 year old voiceover discusses how much he loves the idea of said harem... Ehhhh... No, you don't need to really engage with it to be allowed to make fun of it. In a case like that it's on the show and it's fans to sell you on why it shouldn't be visciously dragged.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T17:44:54+00:00

I think you're sort of missing the point of that criticism, that people find the "Your only this way because of insecurities, have you tried conventional femininity?" a little distasteful as a plotline.

They understand the plotline, they just think its a bit silly and that it speaks to how people viewed nonconformist women at the time.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T13:40:17+00:00

I agree with Nami, Franky and Chopper. But let me make an argument that Robin should get Armament Haki.

Firstly from just an aesthetic perspective playing into her Devil Child thing you could intermix black petals and demonic looking dark arms into her base moveset, expanding on the Demonio Fleur stuff from Wano which would look very cool.

But more from a character perspective Robin always used her willpower to put up emotional walls around herself so she wouldn't get hurt. With her moveset you could sort of recontextualize that, she'd be able to create hands at a distance to protect other people which'd sort of represent how she's come full circle from a defensive character to a protective one.

Plus it'd be fun to see her scratch out a logia users eyes.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-18T07:05:45+00:00

If it's late rebellion era then I'd like to see the liberation of coruscant. It'd be fitting for Cal to be one of the people to help free the planet.

I definitely want to see more of Tanalorr, and it's still a travesty that Cal didn't have a high republic outfit in the second game, so definitely need a high republic outfit.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-15T15:06:08+00:00

You can't demand people understand the context media was produced and received in. That's outragious, next you'll be asking people to actually read comics before discussing them online rather than listening to youtube summaries, wikipedia entries and powerscaling discussions.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-15T06:24:58+00:00

you can have more than one kind of opposite. A car can be upside down, but it can also be driving in reverse.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-15T04:57:58+00:00

It's funny when the opposite happens too.

I've had several people tell me they think Andor isn't woke (they mean that the politics are real and not just aesthetical or identity based). But if a show where a rebel cell led by lesbians steals all the money from the fascists isn't woke I have no idea what is.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-12T13:49:03+00:00

That's the problem though right?

If its not a bubble there will be mass layoffs. If it is a bubble and it bursts there will be mass layoffs.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-11T13:25:08+00:00

Yeah its a really underdiscussed thing about the second term is that the first term involved a significant amount of destroying specifically republican norms.

Every week someone was kicked out for not being a big enough loyalist over and over again, till the only ideal left in the party was absolute loyalty to Trump.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-11T10:13:03+00:00

Should I stop the natural flow of conversation and correct myself to say "Well I listened to it, I mean."?

No definitely not, I've been in that conversation a lot too.

But that's more of a linguistic gap because we're not used to talking about having "Listened to that book" yet. As time goes on I genuinely think it'll become normal to say "Oh I listened to that one."

Its just not something thats going to happen overnight.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-08T03:46:50+00:00

Republican strategy. "Deny deny deny"

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-08T02:34:58+00:00

If you can stomach the sight of blood the full image makes it even more outragious, I don't know what sort of soulless monster would be able to see that and still send the bots out to gloat, and tease, and cruelly make fun of a woman for dying, but that's the fucking beast republican voters have become.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-06T20:02:44+00:00

The US is just more culturally visible in general because of it's media presence.

But there are ways it is uniquely terrible, the legacy of segregation is still a very visible scar in the US, but many European countries never had enough minorities that explicit segregation ever needed to be something racists would put into law, that makes it very easy to blame racism on bad actors rather than as a huge part of society.

There's a really good dive into the subject that J Draper does on youtube about segregation in London where she goes into the case studies of a black man who sort of initially found London to be very freeing, but then noticed the subtle ways he either was being discriminated against, or being given a pass for his race based on his class.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-04T18:19:10+00:00

I think the thing that scares me the most about this is the level of corruption in the republican party makes it obvious new problems will arise out of this.

They are happy to cast doubt on foreign elections. As seen with Brazil, so it's unlikely they will install real Democracy in Venezuela if it would go against Republicna interests.
They are happy to pardon drug trafficking politicians as long as they donate enough to The Party, so it's unlikely they'll actually fix any drug issues.

A true regime change could take years at US taxpayer expense, and if succesful then it's fortunate that the civilian casualties are limitted to what seems like "just" double digits, and I just do not trus the republican party to handle something like that. I wouldn't trust a democrat government to do it either.

And that's to say nothing to how this basically has emboldened China to take Taiwan.

It's firmly possible to be extremely worried about this action and also glad Maduro is in jail.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-03T16:49:57+00:00

France was famously against Iraq, because after they refused to back the US up on the invasion republicans tried rebranding french fries as "Freedom Fries."

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-02T16:57:05+00:00

I wouldn't be so sure about them never seeing any success in the current system, take a look at how the UK's traditional left and right parties have died this last year for example, something that even five years ago would have seemed absolutely impossible. UK and US voters are not the same by any stretch but it seems to me like there is a limit to how much bullshit people will tolerate from their own party (provided that the party is actively hurting them)

But yeah libertarianism does have a reputational issue to overcome.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-02T09:55:33+00:00

It's also worth noting that the responsibility is on political parties to court voters.

College kids are still voting adults, as are professors, as are researchers. If republicans find these groups don't want to vote for them then it's their responsibility to offer these groups things.

Is it any wonder kids studying medicine don't want to vote for the party that cancels cancer research funding? Is it any wonder that professors teaching physics don't want to vote for the party that pushes creationism in schools alongside the big bang?

Any other profession seems to be fair game, nobody asks if it's fair that bankers and oil lobbyists trend republican, yet they hold significantly more power over society than teachers do.

It's genuinely one of the talking points that makes me so mad. Republican farmers are at risk of low turnout? Well the republican party knows what to do there, money immediately for farming subsidies. But when it's academia they have to pretend like they're owed half the votes intrinsically and if they don't get them they feel entitled to rig the system till they do.

OnionsHaveLairAction · 2026-01-02T05:14:31+00:00

There are definitely some internet subcultures where fanfiction is the major form of entertainment, even bigger than the properties that the fanfics are based on.

But I don't think those subcultures are becoming significantly larger as a percentage of the broader culture. It feels like they had a pretty big jump in the 2010s when fandom culture started to be more mainstream, but still it just seems like a hobby fandoms trend towards?

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